15 July 2015 3:58 PM

A New Discussion About School Selection

To Select by Wealth or by Ability - That is the Question

I have been engaged in a discussion on Twitter with a parent from Kent, about grammar schools. I suspect this person has mistaken my point of view, which is not that I care much about the expansion of grammar schools in Kent itself, but that I wish to see the national restoration of school selection by ability round about the age of 11, using the German system of assessment and mutual agreement rather than through the 11+ examination and with plenty of opportunities for later cross-over for late developers.

The age of 11 is crucial because it gives a much greater chance of affecting the pupil’s life chances if she or he comes from a poor home. Later selection, for sixth-form colleges at 16 or for universities at 18 (which is allowed in our system, despite its pious horror at selection at 11) tends only to confirm the advantages already won or given.

My arguments have been many times stated on this blog and can be found through the index under ‘Grammar Schools’ , but they are summed up in an essay, complete with references, in this pamphlet (search for ‘Peter Hitchens’)

Kent’s grammar schools, like most of those remaining, give almost no guide to the operation of a national selective system. Being within range of London commuters, who can afford high house prices and tutors, and in some cases prep-school fees, these schools are not so much oversubscribed as besieged. Why wouldn’t they be? Seven years of comparable private schooling would cost something in the region of £150,000 in *post-tax* income. What’s more, state-school pupils have a great advantage in applications to Oxbridge , and grammar school pupils are perhaps best-placed of all to reap this advantage, since they are academically excellent.

How to get into Oxbridge, and be loved by everyone

As a little-noted but gripping Sunday Times news story (headlined ‘Comprehensives still fail to make Oxbridge grade’) of 17th December 2006 (by Geraldine Hackett) made clear, ‘less than 20% of secondaries provide[d] all the entrants [to Oxbridge] from the state sector, with most of the successful applicants coming from grammar schools or sixth-form colleges.’ At the time the ancient universities were both taking about 48% of their pupils from the state sector, responding( as they must) to political pressure to do so. In the days before the abolition of the national grammar school sector, the numbers of state entrants rose anyway, without political pressure.

Using Freedom of Information laws, Ms Hackett found (for instance) that one Kent grammar school, St Olave’s in Orpington(much favoured by Blairites in the past) got 20 of its 167 sixth formers into Oxford or Cambridge. Church-based ‘comprehensives’ such as the Roman Catholic London Oratory, favoured by Anthony Blair himself, also did well, though not as well as the grammars.

I doubt very much if these figures have altered significantly in the past ten years.

Taking the Bolshevik View

So I do not much care whether the current attempt to create satellite grammar schools in Kent succeeds or fails (though I rather expect it to fail, given the current state of the law) . It is an attempt to ease the strain without actually reforming the system. If I took a wholly Bolshevik view, I’d probably prefer it to fail, as I don’t want to create safety valves to ease the pressure on our existing system to change. For that reason I oppose the current development of so-called ‘Free Schools’, which I think are just another escape route for a small number of privileged, time-rich well-off parents. They are comparable to the many obliquely selective schools (selecting through catchment area, or public religious practice) such as those used by Blairite politicians. If such schools did not exist, the pressure for the restoration of selection by ability would greatly increase. As it is, it’s probaby fairer to say that I’m neutral about the Kent plan.

Nobody wants the Secondary Moderns to Come Back...because they Never Went Away

But my remarks in last week’s column led to the usual cries of ‘Nobody would want the secondary moderns back’, which is the standby slogan of the comprehensive lobby, and the argument I set out to combat most thoroughly in the essay referenced and linked above, which points out that selection continues to exist, by money rather than ability; and which also points out that the general state of secondary education, for all, was damaged by the abolition of grammars. What we have, for most people, is ‘secondary moderns for all’, rather than the ‘grammar schools for all’, which Labour promised in 1964. No need to bring back the Secondary Moderns. They are still with us, only bigger and more disorderly, and called ‘Bog Standard Comprehensives’.

In which I make the acquaintance of 'Kent Mum'

Anyway, one of those who came up with the ‘What about the secondary moderns?’ non-argument was the author of the blog to which I link here,

This was produced by someone I know only as ‘Kent Mum’. She wrote it in response to a Tweet from me, repeated several times , in which I asked (not having got an answer at first) ‘How does closing good grammar schools make bad schools better’.

I’ve reproduced this response in full below, and interleaved my responses (marked ****) with the author’s points

First off I am not in favour of ‘closing’ Kent’s excellent grammar schools, but I do want to make the best schools available to all, and I see evidence in Kent that selective education has a negative impact on the school system.’

‘Kent Mum’ clearly states she favours a comprehensive system, which entails the destruction of grammar schools, though in a sort of Pollyanna way which assumes that this time it will be different, and comprehensives in Kent will turn out better than they have anywhere else. She writes : ‘Let’s assume we need to change things to give grammar school parents pretty much what they have now, but in mixed ability schools, and without the exam and unfairness bits that no one likes.

We need to give grammar school parents an absolutely great comprehensive system, and a careful change that won’t bother them much at all. Then surely everyone will be happy?! (I said I was an optimist.)’

**** PH continues: In another posting on the same site http://kentschoolshope.com/2015/07/05/hello-world/, ‘Kent Mum’ says : ‘I don’t need to be told that the comprehensive system is flawed, that the middle classes milk the system by buying property close to good schools. I know the comprehensive system isn’t perfect, but, with all its flaws I think comprehensive schools are better than Kent’s selective system. Here children get worse schools just because they fail an exam at ten.

‘If Kent took the opportunity to move to a comprehensive system I think most areas would be starting from a good place, without issues of house prices effecting catchment areas. My own town would gain a community school that truly reflected our community; and our community happens to have lots of smart active people who would get involved in fighting for school improvements.’

***PH writes: Well, how do you ‘move to a comprehensive system’ without abolishing selection at 11 and closing Kent’s excellent grammar schools? That’s what ‘moving to a comprehensive system’ has meant everywhere else it has happened. She does in fact think that closing good grammar schools will make bad schools better. There is absolutely no evidence for this contention at all. It has made good schools worse, everywhere it has been done, and created a large number of schools which can be described as mediocre at best, and which have not been able to maintain the standards of the better schools which they replaced.

Earlier in the same piece, ‘Kent Mum’ says : ‘ If it was proven that comprehensive education failed bright kids then there might be some case for it, but evidence suggests clever kids do just as well in mixed ability schools. I understand the argument that the secondary moderns in Kent could improve and the grammars should be left in peace, but there are a lots of reasons why this doesn’t work practically.’

*** PH: Once again, this clearly means that she favours the replacement of Kent’s selective system with a comprehensive system, and believes that closing good schools will make bad schools better. She couldn’t be clearer that she thinks the Secondary Moderns cannot be improved if the grammars are ‘left in peace’.

What does this mean if it does not mean the destruction of grammars through comprehensive mergers, as has happened almost everywhere else in the country? I would like to know what her basis is for the assertion that ‘evidence suggests clever kids do just as well in mixed ability schools.

As I show above, grammar schools still utterly outdo even the best and most selective comprehensives in Oxbridge entrance, the supreme test of academic standards in any school. And, as my article in the pamphlet (linked above) shows quite clearly, the destruction of the selective system was followed by a dilution and then the abolition of the GCE ‘O’ level, which mixed-ability comps simply couldn’t cope with. Similarly, the GCE ‘A’ level has also been seriously diluted in the same period. Even Sir Graham Savage, inventor of the comprehensive, admitted that standards would suffer from their introduction (see the chapter on this subject in my book ‘The Cameron Delusion’) .

If ‘Kent Mum’ became, say ‘ Oxfordshire Mum’, she would find very swiftly that there was still selection at 11, just as ruthless as in Kent, except that it was by wealth rather than ability. And that even then, if she could afford the better comprehensives, those schools would not reach the standards attained by Kent’s Grammar Schools. Hence the many flourishing private day and boarding schools in that county.

Back to the arguments of ‘Kent Mum’:

'In Kent the selective system creates a two tier system of good schools (grammar) and bad schools (secondary moderns.) I think it’s far more relevant to ask the question a different way. My question for Peter Hitchens and other selective education fans is, how does opening good grammar schools make bad schools better?'

****PH writes: I have never said that it did. Graham Brady says that the local high schools in his (selective) area are excellent, and John Marks believed that secondary moderns in many cases outperformed comprehensives, but I’ve never seen any actual research on this, and I’m not sure that anyone with any power or money would want to do it. The pro-selection movement has survived for years on little but the passion of its supporters, has no big money and no political or academic clout. Research doesn’t just happen. People have to commission and pay for it.

Also, isn’t it interesting that, as ‘Kent Mum’ tweeted to me today (15th July) ‘Unfair allocation of places still happens [In Kent]. In a selective area we get a 2nd tier of selection with houses near good sec moderns’. So there is in fact a three-tier system. Had we kept selection in 1965, and reformed it instead of destroying it one reform that would have got plenty of support would have been the creation of more grammar schools, which were unevenly spread across the country and at the time were very unfair to girls. I’ve never seen any reason for stopping at 20% or even 25%, and I’d be interested to know what percentage are educated in the German and Swiss equivalents of grammar schools.

‘Kent Mum’ asks : ‘Isn’t it the bad schools we want to improve? Don’t we want to improve education for the majority of ordinary children?’

****PH replies: Who could disagree? I have many ideas for improving bad schools, most of them to do with reforming state primaries. But that is not what *this* specific argument is about. This is about a) saving good schools from being wrecked and b) reintroducing a fairer system, better for the British people as a whole in that it wastes less talent.

‘Kent Mum’ writes : 'This is the way pupils get places in ‘good schools’ in these two systems.

Comprehensive education:

The good schools are full of middle class kids whose smart parents buy expensive houses in the right catchment area. They walk to an excellent comprehensive school.

Selective education:

Good schools are full of middle class kids whose smart parents give them the right genetics to pass a test, or tutoring if they’re not quite there. They get a bus or a train to an excellent grammar school.'

****PH writes: This is a distortion, and I find it hard to believe that those who offer it are unaware of it. As I have many times explained, in a national selective system, as we had before 1965 and as Germany now has, there are ( or can be) enough good schools for academically-inclined pupils of all classes. If there aren’t, it surely makes more sense to open *more* grammar schools than to close them all down because there aren’t enough of them. Tutoring is rare in such a system because there is no need for it.

Tutoring in Kent is a consequence of the siege of a small number of schools by thousands of families spread over a vast segment of the London commuter belt, most of it comprehensivized (hence the enthusiasm among London Labour elite types for St Olave’s Grammar in Orpington). Many children from poor homes escape their backgrounds, which they cannot do in a comprehensive system. This system will of course also benefit the middle class, which is especially concerned with education. Why shouldn’t it? What’s wrong with the middle class? But that doesn’t negate its good effect on children from poor homes.

‘Kent Mum’ says:

I’ve yet to see an argument for selective education that explains how the 80% of ordinary children in ordinary schools do any better with a selective system.

***PH writes: Her reliance on this actually irrelevant point is astonishing. It's not what it is about. Abolishing grammars didn't help those who didn't go to them. How could it have done? As for the effect on other schools, we don't have a reliable comparison. See above. Such an argument would require research into comparative outcomes which I think is lacking. I’ve yet to see anyone seriously claim that our national education standards, as a whole, have risen since the abolition of selection. All my anecdotal experience, plus the dilution of exams discussed above, which is measurable, suggests precisely the opposite.

‘Kent Mum’ says:

We always hear how great grammar schools will be. Do the secondary moderns get a mention? No.

***PH writes: On the contrary. The non-sequitur that Secondary Moderns were bad is incessantly brought into the argument about selection. None of those who ever advances this argument can show that Secondary Moderns were bad *because* Grammar Schools were good. Nor can they explain how abolishing grammar schools would make them better. Grammar Schools are good precisely because they select . Any system which does not select will be inferior to one that does. Can those who advance this ‘argument’ show that Secondary Moderns were any worse than today’s bog-standard comprehensives?

‘Kent Mum’ writes: ‘All the time we hear how excellent everything is for bright children in great grammar schools. Do we hear how this helps ordinary Jimmy in his ordinary secondary modern school? No.’

***Once again, this is not a reasoned argument. My answer to it, which began this exchange, is ’How does closing grammar schools help those in bad schools?’ It remains unanswered. There is no answer. It doesn’t help them, hasn’t helped them, won’t help them.

‘Kent Mum’ says : 'So we are leaving 80% of children out of the discussion. People want to change the education system to ‘fix it’ for only 20% of the children? That doesn’t seem very ambitious.

****PH writes: We are also leaving the armed forces, Tony Hancock, Iran, Strictly Come Dancing, Greece, Kate Moss, the BBC licence fee, the weather and Wimbledon out of the discussion. That doesn’t mean we don’t think these things are important or interesting. It just means we aren’t talking about them just now. That is the nature of the discussion. Schools will select one way or another. Why, they even select in Communist Cuba. A minority will benefit. The questions under discussion are ‘Which minority? and 'Is it fairer and better to select by ability, or by the wealth of the parent?’.

‘Kent Mum’ writes : ‘I am not convinced that this is the one and only answer to house price selection and ‘bog standard’ schools. I hope this is not the best we can do. I prefer to look for other answers.’

***PH writes: First, why look for another solution? Selection by ability in fact worked very well between 1944 and 1965. Huge numbers of scientists, doctors, political and media figures got educations they couldn’t have dreamed of otherwise, and which their present-day equivalents could not get now. Go through Who’s Who and see how many distinguished men and women of today came from poor beginnings and rose to great heights thanks to grammar schools.

In concert with Direct Grant schools, a highly successful alliance of state and private sectors, pupils from modest backgrounds stormed Oxford and Cambridge and pushed out the public schoolboys. Two of Europe’s most successful countries, Germany and Switzerland, retain selection with good results. When Communist east Germany collapsed, one of the first changes was a wave of petitions from parents for the restoration of selection, which has been successfully achieved across the former GDR. Earlier, when West German leftists sought to abolish grammar schools in North Rhine-Westphalia, parents (many of them themselves Social Democrats) took to the streets in their thousands to save them, and succeeded. A selective system in northern Ireland survives, and ( see my essay, linked above) poor children from the province have a 50% greater chance of getting to university than their equivalents in fully-comprehensive Scotland (30% greater than in largely-comprehensive England). Why abandon a winning formula?

Anyway, we know from the quotations above that the ‘other solution’ sought by ‘Kent Mum’ is not some mysterious work of genius which will somehow square the circle of achieving excellence without selection. What she wants is the failed, discredited comprehensive system, under which British school standards have fallen so catastrophically that the whole examination system has had to be subjected to lowered standards and rampant grade inflation to cope with the decline.

‘Kent Mum’ writes :’Are we even absolutely certain that the 20% we are helping in these great new grammar schools are the ones who need help the most?’

****PH writes. I am not sure what she means by ‘needing help’. But I am quite certain that Kent’s distorted, besieged system of vestigial selection, surrounded on all sides by areas which have gone comprehensive, whose parents cross the border to see if they can get excellent education without fees, is not doing the job which a national system would do. Give the adjoining areas the same sort of schools, and the system could one again function as it ought.

‘Kent Mum’ writes: ‘The thing that gets ignored in this whole debate is that society’s academic sorts are predominantly wealthy, confident and manage to sort things out for themselves. This means they sort out good comprehensive schools. It’s a lovely idea that there are millions of working class children who are super smart and not getting a great education, I am sure there are some. But the top 20% academically able types are more likely to be from wealthy high achieving families. But, hang on, aren’t wealthy high achieving families the ones doing best in our current system?’

***PH responds. I am not sure what point is being made here. It would hardly be surprising if educated parents did not encourage their children in their education. But I am by no means sure that all educated parents are wealthy. In modern Britain, the costs of housing are now so high that what would once have been a comfortable income is no longer anything of the kind. Under our current system, many such families have no access to good education. Even where they do (see above) it is inferior to what they could have got under a selective system.

I have never heard anyone argue that ‘there are millions of working class children who are super smart and not getting a great education’. I am not even sure what the term ‘working class’ means any more in our deindustrialised society. What I am sure of is that only the rich have any guarantee of a tolerable, let alone good education for their children, and that academic selection would improve this dire circumstance. As for ‘aren’t wealthy high achieving families the ones doing best in our current system?’ Yes, of course they are. Such people know how to play systems and can if needs be pay for tuition, for as good postcode or even for fees. But there are plenty of valuable people, achieving much, from priests and police officers to teachers or small businessmen and women, who achieve much but are not wealthy (they may not even be able to afford Pizza Express) and never will be. A society which closes good schools to them is damaging itself.

‘Kent Mum’ writes: ‘Here in East Kent the middle class parents work with their children to practice Kent Test papers, or pay for eleven plus tutors. It’s no surprise that their children take the grammar school places. If this didn’t happen my middle class friends would simply move to be near a good school, or pay for private education.’

****PH writes: We have discussed this distortion, not a feature of a national selective system, many times already. All she is saying is that, because it is besieged by parents from miles around seeking a good free education, Kent is really just a modified version of the comprehensive system. I agree. Let us get rid of the comprehensive system, and we will have more merit and more justice. If ‘Kent Mum’ *really* wants Kent to be fairer, she should be campaigning for a national selective system.

‘Kent Mum’ writes: ‘Academic selection is not fixing the ‘problem’ It is giving good schools to a section of society least likely to need them.’

****PH writes. I have answered that point above. I suspect ‘Kent Mum’ has little idea of what a good private education now costs. Very few middle class people can now hope to afford such fees.’

‘Kent Mum’ writes: ‘I have yet to see an article that says selective education is any better for the 80% who don’t get to grammar schools.’

****PH replies: She has made this weary, increasingly desperate point many times already. She has no evidence to the contrary, either.

‘Kent Mum’ writes: ‘At best it’s ‘no worse’ for these children, but here in Kent I see plenty of evidence that local grammars do make secondary moderns worse.’

Grammar schools have less disruption – kids in these schools like to learn and do well. So the knock on effect in Kent’s ‘bog standard’ secondary modern schools is that there are more children disinterested in learning. There is more disruption and ‘difficult kids’ than a mixed ability comprehensive. In my daughter’s school there is a general lack of ambition and aspiration, the other kids make her think being smart is ’embarrassing.’

****PH writes: On what factual evidence does she base her assertion that there is *more* disruption in Kent Secondary moderns than there is in Bog-Standard comprehensives in fully-comprehensive areas?

I have seen no measure of this, but there are plenty of such schools (Bog-standard comps)which are disorderly and where there is strong hostility to learning. In several comprehensive schools in (fully comp) Oxford, including one with a ‘good’ reputation, bright children find it wise to keep their heads down if they do not want to be the butts of teasing and bullying. To be called a ‘Boffin’ (the local term) in such a school is to be despised and often ostracised. I have seen no surveys of this but the C4 programme ‘Undercover Teacher’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae1gmuKeuXw and the ‘Guardian’ articles by ‘Secret Teacher http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/series/the-secret-teacher suggest she may be idealising comprehensive schools.

‘Kent Mum’ writes:

‘Better teachers

There is a shortage of good teachers. It’s common sense that the best teachers will want to teach nice kids who complete their homework and want to learn. This means secondary moderns have lower quality staff and more staff leaving when a nice grammar school job becomes available. My daughter’s two secondary moderns have had an endless stream of supply teachers, none of whom set homework because they might not be there to collect it.’

****PH replies: once again, I do not think that comprehensive schools are immune from this problem. Nice rural schools, or schools in good postcodes, get good long-staying teachers,. The others must cope with supply teachers and a mixture of saints, martyrs and the defeated.

‘Kent Mum’ writes: ‘Parental involvement

Grammar schools parents tend to be the sort who get involved with schools. Sadly the lower middle class kids tend to have less involved parents, possibly through work commitments. Grammar school parents fundraise for new equipment or might ask for after school clubs. Kent’s secondary moderns have less school funds and rarely have after school clubs.’

****PH replies : See above. The same distinctions are to be found between bog-standard comps and comps in better postcodes. The main difference is that selection to these schools is by wealth.

‘Kent Mum’ writes : ‘Less choice

My friends with children who pass their eleven plus get a choice of all local schools. They can apply for eight schools in travelling distance, while I have a choice of only four. This was actually the thing that started me questioning the selective system. When I looked at schools for my daughter I saw the local grammar schools were ‘outstanding’ while the schools I could choose from were mostly Ofsted ‘goods’ or ‘needs improvement’.’

****PH replies: I think she should ask parents in fully-comprehensive areas what the process is like for choosing your child’s school, and how it feels on ‘National Offer Day’ when they don’t get their first choice . Officially, 20% don’t. Actually, the figure is far higher because parents don’t put down their real first choice unless they’re very confident of getting it, for fear of failing to get into the next best and sliding all the way down to the bottom of the snake as a result. She seems to view fully-comp areas much as 1930s fellow-travellers viewed the Soviet Union, a sunny paradise of ordered equality. It ain’t so.

‘Kent Mum continues : ‘ Class differences

This really gets me. My daughter can’t tell her school friends she eats at Pizza Express, and she has to dress in Primark to fit in! Secondary moderns are set up to ‘teach a trade’. I couldn’t believe there was no library in my daughter’s school. I am ok with the hairdressing and mechanical school, I am sure some children will benefit from it… but it seems there’s a general lack of ambition in secondary modern schools. The children see no excellence to inspire them, they see no high achievers to make them want to push themselves a little harder. If all your peers are settling for leaving school and an apprenticeship wouldn’t you be less likely to try a bit harder and reach university?’

****PH writes: I really don’t think the stuff about Pizza Express and Primark is to do with what sort of schools she has locally. In our post-Christian world, brands and consumerism are pretty important among both the well-off and the poor, and inverted snobbery is always a problem in modern Britain. But once again, does she really think there are no bog-standard comps where the same is true? There may even be some that don’t have a library, or where the library is so inadequate that it might as well not be there? I agree that this is a shocking thing, and she is right to be appalled by it. But in many schools with libraries there is, alas, not much incentive or encouragement to use them and rather too many who can barely read the books they contain.

‘Kent Mum’ continues: ‘Labels

This one alone makes me think the selection system is flawed. We keep getting told not to ‘label’ our children as stupid, or lazy, or bad. But we label children ‘not academic’ every year in Kent. I have a teenage daughter, and I don’t need to watch the latest Always #LikeAGirl ad to know most girls have a confidence problem. I don’t think being told you’re ‘not as smart’ as your peers is a very good way to treat a ten year old.’

***PH writes: Nor is it especially nice, on ‘National Offer Day’ to be told you’re not rich (or apparently religious) enough to go to a good school. The world’s neither fair nor perfect. Even so, merit’s better than wealth or blind chance, if there must be a choice. And there must. By the way, at what age does she think people can be judged without minding? Universities select. Employers select. Sports teams select. Rejection comes to us all from time to time, and it’s never much fun. The important thing is not to be defeated by it, whenever it occurs.

‘Kent Mum’ writes: ‘No flexibility

In Kent (presumably due to the admin headaches of the system) a fail is a fail. If you mess up one day when you are ten you can never get to a grammar school. My daughter is now getting about the same marks as her grammar school friends, but her fail in the eleven plus disallows her from grammar schools the whole of her educational career. A system like this has to be very sure it is right and that no mistakes are made. But August born children are under represented in grammar schools. I am sure there are many mistakes, or children who excel at maths but fail at English or vice versa, so it seems it is not a perfect system.’

**** PH writes : If this is so, which surprises me greatly, as it certainly wasn’t a universal feature of the pre-1965 system, then it is plain wrong and stupid, and I would happily join ‘Kent Mum’ in campaigning against it. I have long thought the 11+ a poor method of selection, and favour the German system of selection by assessment and mutual agreement, with those who reject their assessment being given (I think) two years in the Grammar School to prove the assessors wrong. This is a good part of the problem. Proponents of the grammar school system *as it was* chose to destroy the whole thing rather than reforming the parts which were bad, and keeping the bits which were good. Too few places? Build more grammar schools. Too few girls? Admit more girls. Selection too rigid? Make it more flexible. Poor primary schools in poor areas disadvantaging the poor? Put resources into those schools to bring them up to the highest standard. And so on.

‘Kent Mum’ writes: ‘I also worry that no one ever asks ‘the 80%’ what they think of this idea. I’ve yet to see an article or argument in favour of academic selection from someone who is the ‘type’ to fail their eleven plus. That makes me uncomfortable; especially because telling secondary modern ‘types’ they are not as clever as the rest might mean they lack confidence to enter the debate.’

****PH writes: Not all wise policies are popular, and not all popular policies are wise. If you asked the 80% and they said ‘Right, let’s abandon selection forever’, would they in fact be benefiting themselves or the country in which they lived? I am sure they would not. Almost all serious statesmanship will hurt somebody or something at the expense of someone or something else. Alas, if you cannot stomach this difficulty, best stay away from politics as a whole.

'Kent Mum' writes: 'I am organising a series of education debates in Kent in the autumn, and I hope these will get a mix of people along. I think talking about education is a great way to make it better. Maybe comprehensive education is not the answer, or maybe it’s not selection either? Or maybe academic selection needs to be turned upside down and we give excellent schools to the bottom 20%? Or maybe we allow academic testing but use it to create streams in mixed ability schools?

I don’t pretend to have the answers, but I would love to keep the debate going. I hope Peter Hitchens and other selective fans might answer my question, how does opening great grammar schools make the bad schools better?

**** PH responds: Once again, I’d be glad of some facts on which we might base such a discussion. It has never been my claim. I have only ever said that the best schools are better under an academically selective system and that such a system is far fairer to those involved and far more beneficial to the country. This is demonstrable beyond doubt, and is enough for me.

‘Kent Mum’ writes: ‘Otherwise we’re revising the whole education system to benefit only a small percentage of children. And, in my opinion, this will be giving good schools to an academic few while disadvantaging many ordinary children.’

****PH retorts. No such thing follows. We have no idea what the effect is on the rest of the system, as no serious comparison has been made. As for ‘giving good schools to an academic few while disadvantaging many ordinary children.’ That is a tricky formulation, with the word ‘while’ cunningly suggesting that the ‘disadvantaging’ is *caused* by giving good schools to a minority. Is it? Is there in fact any ‘disadvantaging’? How do we know? And if there is, what is the cause of it? How do we know that? A lot of stuff is written about ‘creaming’ of good pupils by grammar schools. But the same thing is done by the better comprehensives to their bog-standard neighbours. Yet the results at those ‘better’ comps are nothing like as good as they are at grammar schools. And the results at those bog-standard comps are not significantly different from those at secondary moderns. And in any case, the purpose of schools is to educate their pupils, not to score well in league tables. Academically selective schools are better for their pupils than any other kind.

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Tony H,

You state that I said: 'You claimed in your original post that those from poorer backgrounds will fail the 11+ because of their lack of being prepped.'

I actually wrote:

‘children from poorer backgrounds will obviously fail to perform as well as such ones due to the fact they have not been as well prepped.'

My comments make allowance for exceptions, such as your child. However, the fact remains that a child who is prepped will likely do better than one who isn't. And I also believe that a child, who might fail the test without any intervention from a private tutor, would have much greater chance of passing if they were prepped.

The fact is that all citizens are supposed to be equal in the eyes of the law. Each person has one vote and expects, when casting the vote, that their elected representative will represent their interests fairly - not favouring one group above another. Therefore, any school system funded by tax paying citizens with equal voting rights should be designed to provide an equal service to all children. Therefore, having a school system that attracts more funding, better teachers and better standards for some, while leaving others with poorer quality teachers, less funding and lower standards is clearly not acceptable – surely?

This is all very well, but whilst we have schools where English is just one of many languages and or dialects, our children suffer. In my day it was different,languages were courses not battlefields, or at best obstacle courses . I/m sure our beloved masters dont put their kids in these innercity towers of babel . In fact its a bit remeiss to allow them . If the bible has any credibility today its in the fables and story therein. And Babel was not an outstanding success.
But what the hell . Here we are talking the education of the masses , Whilst Hitchens talks the education of elites, and a few trash that is let through just to keep the lumpen happy. But those days are gone .The New elites think they are the lumpen, and have won.

I was educated in Essex in the 80s and 90s and the part of Essex where I am from, opportunities for grammar school education did not exist.

@Steven Armstrong

Areas in 'deprevation' currently receive more funding per head than grammar schools, not to mention the increased expense in teaching assistants for those falling behind in comprehensive schools and English teachers for those pupils where English is not their first language.

Strange that you would use the tax system as an argument. Whether middle or working class all taxes are 'hard earned' and turning your argument on its head given that tax is based on a % of income, why should higher earners be forced to pay more in real terms for the current mediocrity on offer?

Taking your logic to its conclusion; why should the healthy hard pressed poor taxes pay for treating ailments on the nhs for smoking, drinking and obesity? or why should the unmarried childless taxes of the poor pay for education at all?

Anyway I am sure the hard pressed poor will receive the benefits of increased number of grammar schools in a generations time when the country is able to once again porduce its own home grown doctors and engineers (which we currently have a shortage and the current comprehensive system is doing little to address), I dare say overall teaching standards would improve as grammar school educated teachers start to filter into the comprehensive system.

I was educated in Essex in the 80s and 90s and the part of Essex where I am from, opportunities for grammar school education did not exist.

Posted by: R. Shlomo O'Hagen | 16 July 2015 at 11:44 PM
@Jeremy Bonington-Jagworth | 16 July 2015 at 03:20 PM
"...when I took the 11+ it was (supposed to be) a pure intelligence test..."
Quite. And what was ultimately produced in the dreaming spires was a cohort of silly old duffers in elbow-patched tweeds smoking pipes and writing the odd Bible analogy.
Well, all that can now be had instantly from wisdom.com.
What the modern world needs is entrepreneurs and risk-takers to keep the economy turning. This virtue is best predicted by family wealth.

-------

None of which invalidates the fact that we need appropriate schools where particular talents can be supported and nurtured without distraction.

You don't get elite footballers by spreading talent and trainers throughout the school system, nor by sending them to a swimming academy.

Academics can't flourish in a pool of non academics: they will drown.

No one would dream of suggesting that we had 5,000 pupil/student educational centres trying to educate all abilities, aptitudes and all ages from kindergarten to postgraduate.

No one would dream of suggesting that all children learned everything in a work-experience environment.

No one would dream of claiming we would win more gold medals if all sports federations pooled their resources and had every training camp in the country dealing with every sport in the world.

And is school even the right environment for entrepreneurs and risk-takers?

Were Branson, Sugar, Gates graduates or drop-outs?

So why do we force every child to attend school from practically birth to 18, and half to 21?!

Don't forget that in the past most of these kids would struggle with O Levels!

Again, fixing the system for the 80% doesn't involve scrapping what works for the 20%!

It's a bit like being an entrepreneur, finding that 20% of your business is successful, and the other 80% not, and so taking a punt on the way to improve the unsuccessful 80% being shutting down the successful 20%?!?!?!

Kent Mum's argument reminds me of that of one of my teachers at my comprehensive school parents' evening. As I was top of most of the classes, but kept my thoughts largely to myself, her feedback was that I could benefit the rest of the class if I spoke up more often. My dad calmly explained to her that it was her job to do the teaching, not mine.

For my part, I'd have much preferred to go to a grammar school and concentrate on my own education than have been expected to act as a teaching assistant for other pupils.

@Jeremy Bonington-Jagworth | 16 July 2015 at 03:20 PM
"...when I took the 11+ it was (supposed to be) a pure intelligence test..."

Quite. And what was ultimately produced in the dreaming spires was a cohort of silly old duffers in elbow-patched tweeds smoking pipes and writing the odd Bible analogy.
Well, all that can now be had instantly from wisdom.com.
What the modern world needs is entrepreneurs and risk-takers to keep the economy turning. This virtue is best predicted by family wealth.

Steven, what you've said is right except for your dismissal of hope. Total certainty and unwavering commitment does not eradicate the existence of hope, the longing for what you know in your heart is true.

I see no point in doing what is essentially psychoanalysis of Mr Hitchens. To continue to encourage one another in our faith? Sure, this is what we are called to do. To dismiss his belief as like that of an athiest, as not really being faith at all? Pointless and unhelpful.

In the rather curt reply to Mr Armstrong ,for not readsing the post in its entirety. Ph fails to undrestand some folk are far to busy doing other things .
***PH writes: how I wish they were. But alas some contributors here are never too busy to post dim, boastful and unresponsive comments in which they demonstrate that they haven't read the post or understood the issue***.
Mr Armstrong being a JW spends lots of time knocking on door usually at the most inconvienient of times . With a bit of luck he'll knock you up . Then you can be curt and rude to his face .
In the meanwhile . Posts that are very long tend like the Maarsticht (sic) Treaty to remain unread . important facts need little or no back up..
In the zeitgeist of this time, social mobility is no worse than it was .Just the wrong sort get that mobility. Hence degrees not worth the paper their printed on .

Is it any wonder kids are going off the rails?! It also means that instead of four local 600 pupil comps/secondary moderns and one, not so local, 600 pupil grammar: all 3,000 children need to travel to the one regional school!

Posted by: Jeremy Bonington-Jagworth | 15 July 2015 at 08:13 PM

Fewer, larger schools makes it easier to administer the ever-exanding brainwashing aspect of contemporary education. When one of the primary goals of children's education is to turn out young citizens all with the same uniform attitudes, opinions and prejudices, the economies of scale of the factory environment start to make sense

Many commentators complain about the benefits of tutoring for the children of the rich, or not, in the case of:

Posted by: R. Shlomo O'Hagen | 16 July 2015 at 01:01 PM:
"To Select by Wealth or by Ability - That is the Question"
And the answer is - wealth. You get what you pay for, a network of movers and shakers of the future. Ability? Determination and ruthlessness are better predictors of success. And no need to expose the tender babes to Eleven Plus Stress Incidental Latent Orthotic Neurosis.

Perhaps it varied with time and place, but where and when I took the 11+ it was (supposed to be) a pure intelligence test (although the verbal tests, supposedly introduced to give girls an equal chance, did require some general education and previous knowledge).

While a child who had never, ever, encountered an intelligence test (and as far as I'm aware, those that missed practice tests has a chance to practice alone) might lose marks, tutoring and practicing for IQ tests is supposed to only give a 5% improvement in scores (and that's only a short term gain).

So tutoring for the 11+, as I knew it, would only help those on the borderline, and then only the private sessions just before the actual test (making it much more affordable, and even something that any parent could do themselves with a book of practice papers).

As for:

"Ability? Determination and ruthlessness are better predictors of success."

That might be true in business (see "cuddly" national treasure Richard Branson's own biography, or the full story behind "charitable" Bill Gates' "success", never mind those psych0pathic, underworld linked r0bber-baron "entrepreneurial" types like Maxwell), but while determination might be important, ruthlessness shouldn't be required to win a Nobel science prize.

Although it might help if you're trying to promote Global Warming, or demolish evidence that intelligence is partly hereditary (or want to get rid of an old dinosaur leading cancer expert who's not very good at jokes and has been targeted by a feminarsty activist).

And as for there being less genetic difference between the races than within a family (- people like Prof Robert Winston?):

Why is there a massive shortage of donor organs suitable for the immigrant population when they have the entire indigenous population who are an even closer match then the patients' own siblings as potential donors?!?!?!

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm:

Next you'll be telling me that even the most respected impartial experts are ruthless enough to lie through their teeth to win!

**PH writes: Nobody is obliged to read to the end, but the article by 'Kent Mum' was a long one, over which she had plainly taken some trouble. I believe that, in debate, one should respond to all the points made by an opponent if it is possible to do so. I am myself dismissive of and scornful of unresponsive debaters, and need to follow my own precepts.***

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

However, it's strange how often a long post, over which someone had plainly taken some trouble to explain a contrary view on one of our hosts pet subjects, is not just not responded to, not just dismissed, but is dismissed as too "incoherent" to be published!

Then again, I suppose that if one believes that one's own argument is incontrovertibly correct, one has to also believe any argument that seems to threaten to undermine it has to be incoherent?!

Kevin 15.07.2015 21:58:
"...experience of Secondary Modern... took CSE and O' level... then... grammar... A'levels... unlike many... who either... private.. education... or passed the 11/13+.. and only experienced grammar... education I have a rare opportunity to compare both... PH is happy that a minority of working class gets the opportunity to experience a good education but I can confirn that when we had this system... majority of working class kids got an awful education from... secondary modern system and... written off as cannon fodder... Labour Party were right to abolish grammar schools with an aim to improve education for the majority. We have not reached that point but the present system is better than what I experienced in the seventies."

Ignoring the point that Mr Hitchens has to continually repeat:

That regardless of how much worse than grammars secondary moderns were, scrapping good grammars is not a solution to mediocre secondary moderns:

But do you have any experience of comprehensives?

I went to one of the few technical grammars during the time my local authority went comprehensive, with comprehensive intake coming into year three when I was in year five, if I recall correctly (they also had "middle schools").

Although I had the school as my first choice, looking back the fact that everyone in my year, apart from one child, were also from council estate or slum ghetto primaries (and no church schools) like myself leads me to believe it was, in fact, a "sink" grammar, and I would have ended up there even if it hadn't been my first choice.

However, regardless of the background of all the former grammar school children, there was a massive deterioration in attitude and standards once it went "comp"!

And perhaps it's my memory failing (and I'll admit it was never that good - the main "handicap" from my dyslexia), but I could have sworn that, despite getting my own children into a fairly "good" school in a leafier adjacent suburb, I covered things several years earlier than them, even doing things in primary they didn't until mid secondary.

It's also a simple fact that, eg in maths, much of the old A Level syllabus was dropped and left to universities to teach, while much of the old O Level syllabus was left to be covered in the new GCSE, or whatever it's now called, "A" Levels.

And, no, learning how to open, write, and send (in three lessons) an email isn't a good reason for stripping traditional topics out of O Levels to make "equivalent" GCSEs!

I'm also amazed that, while as a grammar school academic, I did things like forging welding and casting and turning the bits to make everything from hacksaws through G-cramps to complete bench vices in metalwork, my children glued bits of plastic into "letter racks" or "cd holders" (remarkably similar!) in "resistant materials" in their comp!?!?!?

If they are going in the wrong direction they will NEVER reach the right point!

You are seriously misunderstanding that verse, and the surrounding context makes clear that a Christian does not 'hope' God exists. It states quite clearly:

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. - Hebrews 11:6

Here we find that we *must* believe that he exists - there is no aspect of 'hope' involved. It is a certainty that God exists, without doubt.

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. - James 1:6, 7

The Christian with real faith has *assured expectation* of receiving the things hoped for if they remain steadfast and faithful - even unto death.

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. - Romans 8:24, 25

Thus, you are much mistaken. True Christians do not *hope* God exists, but are persuaded beyond doubt that he is real, and will reward their patience eventually - through their living hope, Jesus Christ, the forerunner and surety, who was raised from the dead.

Finally, I have not claimed to read Peter Hitchens heart, but only his words - it is these that reveal what a man is inside.

And the answer is - wealth. You get what you pay for, a network of movers and shakers of the future. Ability? Determination and ruthlessness are better predictors of success. And no need to expose the tender babes to Eleven Plus Stress Incidental Latent Orthotic Neurosis.

Steven, how can you claim to know Mr Hitchens' heart? You are not God.

Of course Christians also hope God exists. It says as much in Hebrews: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Evidence, such as the gospels, enables such assurance and conviction.

''Well, how do you ‘move to a comprehensive system’ without abolishing selection at 11 and closing Kent’s excellent grammar schools? That’s what ‘moving to a comprehensive system’ has meant everywhere else it has happened''

- In Essex we seem to have ended up with a via media of grammars and comprehensives.

You also mention that Kent is surrounded by the comprehensive system, whereas in Essex, selection via the 11 plus is alive and well.

***PH writes: As far as I know, Essex is (like most counties) predominantly comprehensive. Its surviving grammars are anomalous and weren't spared out of kindness or broad-mindedness but because, at the crucial moment, they were beyond the power of the Education Bolsheviks who would otherwise certainly have wrecked them. A few grammar schools have survived in Chelmsford, Colchester and Southend. I'd guess that at the time in the mid-60s and early 70s when most grammars were being destroyed, these were County Boroughs (independent of the County Council) which ran their own school systems, and refused to destroy them. And that, by the time local government reorganisation came round in 1974, it was politically difficult to destroy them, not least because everyone now knew and could see what 'going comprehensive' actually involved. A number of other counties have vestigial grammars, while being largely comprehensivized. The only shire counties that never went comprehensive were Kent, Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire, as as far as I know. There's also a large concentration of grammar schools in Trafford Metropolitan Borough, in Greater Manchester, and large pockets of resistance in Wirral and Birmingham.***

Otherwise very good. I thought your essay in the civitas collection extremely convincing and contrasted very well with the much weaker points made by the writer in favour of comps.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I share Mr Hitchens' views on grammar schools and I couldn't better his refutation of "Kent Mum's" arguments. However, I would like to add a few glosses.
1. To claim that only 20% of children went to grammar schools is misleading. Paul Bolton's House of Commons Library Note on "Grammar School Statistics" - easily accessible on the web - shows that this proportion was only reached in the 1970s, when the comprehensive revolution had already begun. The proportion in the 1960s was 25% and in 1947 almost reached 38%. A feature of this distribution which "Kent Mum" could have criticised more profitably was the wide variation across local authorities. I haven't got the figures in front of me, but in some areas it was around 40% and in others below 20%. If grammar schools were restored, this imbalance would need to be addressed.
2. "Kent Mum" says that "evidence suggests clever kids do just as well in mixed ability schools".No it doesn't! Quite the reverse in fact. The Ofsted report of last March on "The Most Able Students" found that "many of the most able children who attend non-selective state schools are failing to achieve their potential, compared with students who attend selective and independent schools." This report was a follow-up to one in 2013 and concluded that "very few improvements have been made over the intervening two years."
3. In fact, the examination results in selective areas are better - and often much better - than the national average. Given that these figures, which are readily available in the Department for Education's Performance Tables, include the results of the non-selective as well as the selective schools, this would suggest that the much-despised "secondary moderns", or their modern counterparts, are not doing as badly as the likes of "Kent Mum" would suggest.

I think Grammar Schools do not always have a detrimental effect to the defacto Secondary Moderns in their "shadow".

In Lincolnshire, which is just out of range of the London Commuter belt and its associated wealth the system is fine. The oustanding Bourne Grammar School is excellent but so are both of the non 11+ schools of Bourne Academy (Formerly a Secondary Modern) and The Deepings School (Notionally a Comprehensive) but in effect both are in the 11+ catchment of Bourne Grammar and outstanding on their own terms despite "losing" their 11+ passes to Bourne Grammar.

Lincolnshire still manages Grammar Schools in many of its towns. Shame the rest of the country doesn't.

This feels like a bizarre distortion of a Wimbledon match, where all the balls go whizzing by, ignored by the other player, who seems to be on a different court entirely, in a sort of parallel universe of debating tennis. Something else is going on here, at a psychological level.
Closing good schools does not make bad ones better. But Kent Mum simply isn't bothered about grammar schools. She's bothered about secondary moderns, for fear that that's all you may get. Rupert's Dad in the Tory shires tolerated comprehensives for the same reason, for fear that young Rupert might not be the sharpest pencil in the box. This is about fear.
Useless to explain that comprehensives *are* secondary moderns, if the grammar schools aren't there to show the difference, you can go on pretending that comprehensives are better. Kent Mum probably knows this perfectly well, since "secondary moderns" in Kent are in fact called "comprehensives".
Which is why "What to do about the secondary moderns" (or comprehensives, if you prefer) needs real attention. Advocates of ability selection tend to avoid this. The Technical Schools never really happened. There is a "Modern School" curriculum available to historians but didn't it have a bad press. Would taking the G off GCSE make it better ?
What comprehensive (i.e. anti-grammar) advocates really, really, don't want to confront is that awful reality that some people are cleverer than others. You can say this in dozens of more diplomatic ways. And talk about talent for sport, music, business, etc. But the basic truth that we are all different does not go away.
So the whole thing reduces to what you really want out of education. Is it the fullest flowering of the individual, whatever their gifts ? Or a ruthlessly enforced "equality of outcome" ("closing the gap", they call it) which nearly always means putting shackles round the ankles of clever children.
I'm behind anyone who wants the former. Grammar schools can take care of the clever ones very well. But you also have to look out for the rest of God's children whose talents are different. Some RC schools seem moderately successful at this, which could be a reason they are popular. (Not so sure about the CE versions). They have something entirely absent from the secular comprehensive - a set of values that says children's talents are all gifts of God, and therefore deserve their fullest flowering - all of them. And thus quite happy to accept that some children are cleverer. And remind them that from those to whom much is given, much will be expected.
Starts to look like a microcosm of the Hitchens thesis that replacing God with the State creates monstrous tyrannies. Taking God out of the classroom leaves a void ready to be filled with the "equality of outcome" ideology, and all its consequences.

Thank you for your comment. You have cleared nothing up as the example you provide does not invalidate my points in any way whatsoever.

Gavin,

So what? Well, as many poorer persons cannot afford tutors to prep their children for the 11 plus, why should their hard earned tax payments be used to send better off children to selective schools that employ better teachers and have better funding while their own children 'rot' in poorly funded schools with a poorer quality of teacher - simply because the better of parent can afford to prep their child for the 11?

If all pay taxes, then all should expect the same level of public services; otherwise they should fund their child's education privately.

I was educated in an East Kent grammar school. I came from out of area due to my father's work and hadn't taken the 11+. I attended my local secondary modern in the first year and by the Easter term I'd been transferred to the Grammar.
That wasn't that long ago - if Kent Mum's child is as academically gifted as she says then she should be transferred across.

I'm afraid most of the problems we have stem from a very misguided dogmatic insistence on achieving equality of outcome, rather than equality of opportunity.

The 80% that Kent mum worries about may well not do much better under a grammar school system; though if my experience (personal and from collegues) of schools in Germany is anything to go by, the less academic children given the right type of schools and resources flourish.

The harsh reality is that large numbers of people/children will fail in school and life, that is simply how things go and we have to accept that (unless you are willing to go down the road of genetic enginering).

In this country we have become so programmed to hate elitism that we condem our brightest and most able (unless of course their families have money and can afford great schools) because we did do away with selection. Elitism, is a good thing and should be encouraged, provided it is NOT simply ascribed elitism. However, elitism based on hard work, ability and skillset is the very best way to move a society forwards, whether that is from a vocational or academic standpoint. The reason, or one of them, selection was done away with was, because it might hurt or upset the ones who aren't as academically able - labelling them as inferior (largely because of our warped belief that academics are better than vocational subjects in this country.)

This doesn't happen in Germany, vocational training is given the same standing as academic and both are prized equally. It is to our own detriment that our culture has become so snobbish about vocational training and trades and it is our attitude which needs serious change.

Our dogmatic view that one size fits all and that all can/should achieve the same has cost us greatly. We are not all the same, children should be assessed at around 12/13 to see which style of education will be more beneficial to them (with , as they do in Germany, provision left open so they can switch if needed).

As Kent mum says in comprehensives you get vocational/non academic children (usually the highest proportion within a school) mixing with the academic children and as such academics and 'boffins' are bullied and humilliated and put down for wanting to better themselves and aspire. However, that can also work the other way round too. That is why separate learning environments are a far better idea. Children of a similar mindset, skill set and ability working together, learning subjects that are geared to their talents will flourish better, rather than in a mixed environment.

Granted, more selection might cause more upset and hurt for the ones who don't make it and it might very well dent their chances - sorry that's life we have to accept that. However, it is the best way of making sure that our young people get the best form of education for them, whether that be academic or vocational and with the possibility of changing environments, that is much the better system than what we have now.

There was a lot wrong with the old eleven plus, it was unfair to decide a child’s future so definitely at such an early age especially as he or she may be a late developer, however, the anomalies could have been resolved without scrapping the whole system, especially for a grossly inferior one. You seem to think it was unfair that rich families could afford extra tuition for their families and, perhaps, it was though I don’t think it was as widespread as you imagine; today money is everything: when an increasingly rare good school appears you can be certain that house prices in the catchment area will soar pushing the children of poorer families into worse schools.

Further to the education pamphlet & "kent mum" posting , as I am a slow thinker , my contributions to questions & possible solutions posed by Mr Hitchens and other commentators & contributors to his blog take a while to emerge clearly.
I have no idea how the german school selection system works , Mr Hitchens has studied it and would like that one adopted in British schools , if this selection system is part of the reason that Germany is the wealthiest country in Europe and its citizens work hard to achieve this , then this German system should be at least considered for British Schools .

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